[southerndog]

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I haven't read the whole thread, but there is a decent chance the SAT has impacted my life more then maybe everybody in this thread. I went to a pretty horrible high school and I was not a great student. Pretty much half As and half Bs. I figured I was pretty decent at math though as I was better then all the teachers. I assumed kids in good colleges where much better than me as I never knew anybody who went to school out of state. I took the SAT my freshman year at the request of the principal since she thought that I may "have potential". I think I got a 1560 or so (nobody in the past had broken 1400) and they decided that I should be bussed to a school 40 miles away, that should tell you how bad my school was.

The new school was much better and i met quite a few kids (maybe 6 or so) with 1500 or 1600 scores. I think the scores were pretty much meaningless in comparing people in this group though. Only one of the kids at my new school was a genius in any real sense of the word and it was pretty obvious to everybody that he was on a different level but there was no way an SAT could show it. He only got about a 1300 though and was horrible at verbal. Just didn't know what the words meant. There were exams that could tell him apart though, we got our hands on a Putnam and he got maybe 6 or 7 (though the teacher that graded them was not really qualified and was way nicer than the real graders) and I was second best with a 2 (would have certainly been a 1 with the real grading).

I think the SAT is pretty good at picking out people who are smart. I think everybody I know who got a 1500 is smart, but it is pretty bad at picking out the ordinary smart kids from the truly special. I guess nobody really expects it to though.

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Good post, bud. Can I axe where you ended up going to college?